Those of you in IT know how it is. The technology you work with just keeps changing on you… heh. In my case, I’ve been caught in the middle of changes for work, namely involving my cell phone and the computer I use. Change is good sometimes, but it’s sometimes a bit unexpected.

A few weeks ago I changed cell phones. I had been using a Cingular 8125 for about a year or so. As much as I loved the 8125 (especially when I got PocketPuTTY and TCPMP installed on it), it had three drawbacks that were beginning to annoy the hell out of me. The thing was extremely bulky; it was not uncommon for the thing to fall off of my belt. Also, using the stylus on the touchscreen could be annoying, especially when I accidentally drop it. I had already lost one stylus in the shop at my office, and have come close to losing the spare one more times than I care to admit. Last but certainly not least, the voice quality was subpar. I could hear people fine, but I couldn’t say the same for people who wanted to hear me. So, I eventually asked for something different. I could have gone with a Samsung Blackjack, but as my coworker Jesse put it, “There’s a REASON it comes with two batteries.” Instead, I got a Cingular 3125. I can’t really use TCPMP (yet) or PocketPuTTY on it, but it’s working out as well as the 8125 did for email. Also, the voice quality is superior, and it’s not too much bigger than a Motorola RAZR. (I compared it to Misty’s RAZR weekend before last.) Granted, I’m having to get used to T9 predicative typing on the phone, but that’s never been too much of an issue for me. All in all, it’s been working out well for me.

On the other hand, I’ve actually been migrating away from Mac for my work machine. I’d been finding I needed to run VMWare for test environments, and there are a couple of apps I use that are Windows-only. A few months back, I got the bosses to get me a desktop machine I could use for VMWare et al, and I would use the Mac when on the road. Well, Jesse needs an actual workstation, and there have been a couple of times when I could have used those Windows apps when out on the road. So, I finally gave in and requested a Dell laptop (in this case, a Latitude D620). My desktop machine will end up going to Jesse, and as for the PowerBook… well, it’ll be turned into my personal use only laptop. In other words, I’ll be taking the Dell on business trips, and the PowerBook on personal trips. Of course, that leaves me with the problem of using my own personal apps when on business trips. (Namely, Firefox, Thunderbird, Gaim, etc.) I’ll end up taking a USB flash drive with the PortableApps Suite software when I do go on those trips, just so I don’t have to worry about installing my own personal stuff on the laptop. The new Dell should be in sometime next week, hopefully.

Of course, the one regret I have about the laptop is that I asked that a case not be ordered for it. I had planned on buying one myself. That was, of course, before looking up the case I wanted and finding that it was a Zero Halliburton case, and that it would cost somewhere between $280-400… yikes.

All in all, things are going good on the work tech front. The changes are taking a bit of getting used to, but it’ll all be for the best, methinks. We’ll just see how it all goes…

Bleh. Well, this is the first post after having upgraded the site to WordPress 2.1; I’ve gone ahead and upgraded the LiveJournal crossposter plugin I use as well, so hopefully everything will be back to normal before long. Ah, well… I’m really starting to dig the auto-save function the site has right now, though. :-)

I’m going to be annoyed for a while. For the past couple of months, it’s become obvious to me that the battery in my iPod was dying. It just would not hold a charge at all; if I started listening to it off of a charger, it would die after a couple of minutes. I finally gave in and sent it off for a battery replacement today. It annoys me because I use the iPod damn near daily. I listen to it whenever I’m driving to/from places, as I have a combination car charger and FM transmitter I use with it. I’ll end up having to dig out some of my burned CDs or (ugh) listening to the radio when driving to and from work for the next couple of weeks. And for those of you who are wondering why I don’t just buy a new iPod, well… my iPod is a 40 GB iPod. The choice is to either pay $400 for an equivalent iPod, or $75 for a battery replacement. I think $75 is a much better price to pay. ;-)

The other big thing I did this weekend was help Sinc get Vampire upgraded. For those who don’t know, Vampire is the stalwart Linux server he’s used for as long as I can remember in various different incarnations. Well, he finally decided this weekend to upgrade it to Slackware Linux 11.0. As his unofficial co-sysadmin, I got drafted to help him get it installed and operational. It took a while (especially with getting Apache/PHP and the firewall operational), but we finally got it completely up and running this afternoon. It was definitely one of those scenarios where I would have felt more comfortable being at the actual machine doing the upgrade… heh. Heck, we’re still coming across issues that we’re correcting. (Right now it’s getting X11 to work on remote machines over SSH… heh.) Ah, well.

Louie’s also expressed in getting a website similar to this one put together. I’ve gone ahead and sent him links to WordPress and Gallery so he can take a look at what is involved, but at some point he and I are going to have to sit down and decide what exactly he needs and what exactly he wants. That should be interesting; it took a while for me to decide what I wanted to do with this site, and I have no doubts it’ll be the same with his. Ah, well… we’ll see.

In any event, I think it’s time I got a good night’s sleep and pray everything is still working in the morning. :-) Fun fun…

Okay, so, I saw this pic on the Daily WTF, and I just had to repost it here. You can take it as either a new ingredient or an amusing bug. :-)

Bah. Today was my more-or-less annual cleaning day on my PC. I really should do it more often, but it’s always a pain to get everything disconnected from the back of my PC and remove it. Well, I removed it, and got the inside of the desk’s PC cubbyhole dusted out. I then took the PC into the next room, and vaccumed it out (with the help of some compressed air purchased from Office Depot). Like I said, I really should do it more often, especially as dust buildup had destroyed my old video card on the night of the Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks Fight Night. Anyway, once the system was cleaned up and good as new, I popped it back into the cubbyhole, hooked up the cables, and booted the system back up… and that’s where things fell apart.

Before today, I had been using ClamWin Antivirus for my PC. However, as much as I like ClamWin (which is a Windows port of the Clam Antivirus software I use for my mail server), the one thing it lacks is an on-access real-time monitor. So, I decided to throw Avast onto this machine, as I had had luck with it before. I had removed ClamWin and installed Avast before shutting down the PC. When the machine came up, it went through a full virus scan before boot… and crashed during logon. Crap.

A couple of aborted logons later, I FINALLY was able to log in using my little-used Administrator account and get the Avast software uninstalled. Once that was done, I was able to log in using my own account and survey the damage. Fortunately only Steam and Logitech SetPoint were corrupted and required a reinstallation. I’ve since installed AVG Free Edition and it’s working fine so far.

It’s kind of amusing, in a full-circle sort of way. I went to Avast from AVG in the first place because I was trying out Windows XP X64, and AVG didn’t support the 64-bit version of Windows (and Avast did). It’s annoying that Avast didn’t work out for me this time, but I don’t really mind going back to AVG. Now, once ClamWin reaches 1.0 and supports real-time monitoring, then I’ll probably go back to it and see how that works out. For the time being, though, I think I’ll stick with what I have.

I had mentioned I would go ahead and make some kind of post about this at some point, and I figure that right now is probably as good a time as any.

Anyway, so… I bought an Xbox 360 a few weeks ago.

I knew I was going to get two consoles in this new generation. One of them was definitely going to be a Nintendo Wii. The other was supposedly going to be either an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3, but really… the Playstation 3 was too damn expensive and didn’t have any games I really wanted. So, an Xbox 360 it was. However, I didn’t expect to get one so soon; I figured I would probably get one some time after the Wii came out. For whatever reason, I ended up changing my mind and bought one off of Newegg.

So far, it’s been a damn nice console. The only frustration I’ve had with it so far has been the fact that I can’t get it to stream media off of my Windows XP machine (which does have Windows Media Player 11 installed), but in the grand scheme of things that’s not been that big of a deal. I also need to get a second controller at some point…

As far as games go, I only have one native 360 game: Gears of War. That has been a real fun game so far, both online and in single-player. Of course, I still need to complete the single-player campaign… heh. Most of the online play has been deathmatch with some of the folks from TNL; my poor standings have shown how much practice I need in gamepad-based shooters. On the other hand, I’ve played coop online once with my friend Josh, and that was fun… even if it was Josh’s second time playing. :-) I also still need to pick up a copy of Blitz: The League, as I was supposed to get that for my bday but my parents bought me the regular Xbox version by mistake…

I also have Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run for regular Xbox, but haven’t played through it yet. I have Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for Xbox, but it’s not backwards-compatible yet. In addition, I’ve also bought the Xbox Live Arcade games Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (think Tempest graphics with Robotron: 2084 gameplay), Texas Hold Em, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Of the three, UMK3 has definitely gotten more of my time, complete with online play (which is refreshingly lag-free). I might get a few other games off there, but what I have now is holding my interest. (Though, I must admit, I’d love to see Mortal Kombat II hit XBLA…)

So, as it stands now, I definitely don’t regret having picked up the 360. It plays great, and looks nice on my LCD HDTV. :-) I’d say it sounds great, too, but I haven’t installed the TOSLINK digital audio cable I bought to give the 360 Dolby 5.1 on my home theater system. As for the Nintendo Wii, now that it’s out… I’m in a wait mode. The two games that will prompt me to get one aren’t out yet, and those are Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Before anyone asks: no, I don’t know how MK Armageddon is supposed to play with the Wiimote. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.

For now, though, I’ll stick with what I’ve got now. It’s certainly fun… heh.

While at the party yesterday, I managed to impress a number of people when I showed that I could post to the site blog via email (at the time, using my Cingular 8125 cell phone), and also via the fact that posts on my site immediately crosspost over onto my LiveJournal. They were asking what plugins I used, and rather than contact them individually I decided to post what they were here. :-)

• Postie: This is the plugin I use for posting via email. Email posting requires a separate email address for the actual emails to be sent to, and possibly access to the server’s crontab. It’s actually quite a neat plugin, and has worked fairly well for me in the past.
• LiveJournal Crossposter: This is actually the second LiveJournal crosspost tool I’ve used. The first one, Live+Press, was neat but didn’t work with Postie and had issues with WordPress 2.x. Formatting issues were also not uncommon. This one is a lot more basic, and doesn’t support the Current Mood/Music tags, but works almost flawlessly and has had no issues whatsoever.
• Auto Shutoff Comments: I actually found this one at Sean’s request; considering how much spam comes in through the older posts (which are almost all blocked these days by Akismet), Sean just felt that it was best to close off their comments forms. After a while, I decided he was right and implemented it on my own site. It doesn’t work for trackbacks, but then Akismet’s good about catching those as well.

While those three plugins aren’t essential for the site, they definitely make my life easier (as well as make it easier for my LJ friends). I highly recommend giving them a try, if you think they might be useful for you. :-)

Okay, so, Fedora Core 6 was released today. I might try it out on a virtual box at some point. However, the thing that caught my eye was the announcement message.

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2006-October/msg00008.html

This is the announcement of Zod. Zod permits you to call him “Fedora Core 6”.

Tremble, Earthlings, for Zod is released from the confines of testing. Zod intends to hammer the servers of the world … starting TODAY! For those who chose the world-domination-acceptance package in your last installation, you need do nothing — Zod is beaming itself to your computers already. If your keyboard begins to get hot, back away … very … slowly …

For the rest of you minions who failed to do Zod’s bidding previously, this is your ONE AND ONLY CHANCE to redeem yourself. Go quickly! Download the torrent NOW. Obtain the ISO immediately. Zod’s minions know to back up their /home directory and to begin immediate installation of the GREATEST version of Fedora Core EVER.

…

Massive downloading of Zod is known to melt servers worldwide, so Zod commands all who are able to use bittorrent.

Now if only all software publishers had that kind of a sense of humour… heh. :-)

Okay, I suppose I should make some kind of post on here… heh.

Anyway, I went ahead and took Windows Vista off of my main PC a few days ago, and reinstalled Windows XP Professional. As much as I liked Windows Vista’s UI over XP’s, the lack of functionality I was encountering was beginning to bug the hell out of me. When Release Candidate 2 came out, I had hoped that at least one or two of the issues I encountered would be fixed. Instead, things got WORSE. The main issue I came across involved networking; whenever I tried to copy data to my network share, the machine’s networking capabilities would completely fail, and the only way I could fix it was via a reboot. I found that out the hard way when I was trying to copy a 2 GB folder over, and networking crashed within the first few seconds of the copy. The only way I could save the folder onto my server was to use WinSCP.

So, a few days ago, I wiped the system and put Windows XP on in its place. I had forgotten how long it takes to format a 640 GB filesystem… heh. I’ve pretty much gotten the system to back how I like it, complete with Logitech SetPoint software, WindowBlinds software to change the theme, and all of my games reinstalled. Fortunately reinstalling everything was relatively painless, and I was back up and running within a couple of days. The best example I could find for how well the system works now is the fact that Defcon actually plays properly, as opposed to being almost like on a Pentium 1 machine while in Vista.

So, for now, I think I’m going to have to stick with XP until such time as Microsoft, Logitech, and ATI get their collective act together and make it where I have a fully-functional machine in Vista. As much as I like a good-looking interface, I prefer function over form, and Vista wasn’t cutting it for me.